


Moriendo Ad Vitam Aeternam Nascimur.

by melliyna



Category: Criminal Minds, Pundit RPF (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Kid Fic, M/M, POV First Person, The 28th Amendment Universe, cm: family verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-22
Updated: 2010-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-12 03:06:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/120078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/pseuds/melliyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David Rossi will go with nothing less than grace. He will not give them the satisfaction of it being otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moriendo Ad Vitam Aeternam Nascimur.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bessemerprocess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/gifts), [voodoochild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/gifts).



> Set in the CM Kid-Verse/28th Amendment fusion. Title comes from the last line of the Prayer of Saint Francis in Latin, the quotations from both the Hail Mary and the Lords Prayer.

_"Our father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thou name…"_

David Rossi repeats the words in a murmur but his mind is only half on the rosary and the words he holds. He thinks of his children (who he will never see grow) and the husband he will never hold again and wonders, how can these people say they are 'for families' with a straight face (he'd gotten a broken nose for saying that out loud, to a particularly holier than thou guard).

He does not weep. At this last, he will not give them the satisfaction.

 _"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. On earth, as it is in heaven"_

He spent a long time talking to God, in the first few weeks. When he'd gone with the agents, mouthed a last 'I love you' to Aaron, David Rossi had expected a lonely death in a ditch and nothing more. It turns out the authorities want to go through the motions of a fair trial but more than that, they want an example.

David Rossi, the famous profiler and sodomite. Firstly, they'd tried to get him to recant but he laughs in their faces because any hold they might have had on him is gone. His family is Canada, his team? Jordan got out. He knows that. Anderson can take care of himself. Erin Strauss is in the same jail and he knows she'd spit in his face if he recanted to save her.

They both respect each other for that, if nothing else. So he laughs in his interrogators face ("I taught you what you know" he finds himself saying with a curse, then a deliberate blasphemy. There's another broken body part, another 'trial' in which he laughs at the judge because what else can they do to him? You can't punish a dead man walking anymore – not if you want him fit to walk for the cameras).

 _"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us …"_

They don't expect him to pray. It unsettles them; he can tell (even if he hears mutterings about 'papists') because they don't know how to react to piety here. So he prays – old childhood prayers his Mom had taught him, prayers Dad and old Father Bill had taught him, in between shifts at the restaurant, prayers to St Michael from his first days as a cop, the Blessed Virgin and the Lord above. In the not silence of the cells and Rossi reflects that jails are never truly silent and this one, despite the isolation cells is not silent. There are to many screams, moans and voices pleading. Mostly they plead for death, though sometimes for loved ones and for the life that they had once lived and laughed. It is harder for Dave to listen to them have their illusions stripped away than it is to dwell on his own fate, sometimes, because David Rossi can accept that he can do nothing for himself but not that he can do nothing for them.

His badge was the first thing they took from him, even before they handcuffed him. His badge, keys, wallet, glasses and the candy dinosaurs he'd bought as a special treat. The little bag that had contained Spencer's things – tiny spare pyjamas, dinosaur toothbrush, stuffed toy unicorn and T-Rex, the fairy princess doll that belonged to Pen and the Unicorn that belonged to them both, JJ's red toothbrush, Emily's blue one and Derek's green. They took it and threw them away with expressions that said these things were tainted. Evil.

One of the guards had even told him exactly that, after he'd been bundled in to the car. One of the guards though, he'd looked doubtful and almost sick, as though it hadn't been what he'd expecting at all – to lead crying children clinging to their parents from an ordinary suburban house filled with toys, kids drawings and a cat. Whatever it had been, he'd let Dave keep one photograph along with his one good suit (look good for the cameras, Dave thinks sardonically – just like the barber who came in to shave him – they didn't want the world to think proper protocol hadn't been adhered to after all) and now it sits under his mattress for the nights when he has to hold on to what he did this for.

 

The photo isn't of a particular special occasion that he can remember – it's just them, in the front yard a few days before Halloween. He thinks a neighbour must have taken the pictures and wonders if they have been missed or if it was one of the neighbours who turned them in, out of a sense of civic duty. They'd picked the neighbourhood because the neighbours cared for each other, Aaron had told him once. That's the kind of memory you have to hold on to.

So he only looks at the photograph sometimes. There's Emily in a red beret, jeans, boots and a red coat. He remembers she had a new shirt on underneath the coat that they'd picked out. Spencer has brown corduroy trousers and little green converses. Pen had her fairy wings and is dancing; pink dress twirling as she is picked up by JJ in a blue coat that echoes Emily's a little and Derek, already looking almost grown up in his jeans and coat who is jumping in leaf piles with Spencer.

Sometimes? He doesn't look at the picture but just repeats their names and ages like a mantra to remind him that they live and he held them once. So he whispers their names in the dark; Spencer Reed Hotchner (two), Penelope Elanor Hotchner (four), Jennifer Jane Hotchner (seven), Emily Marie Hotchner (nine) and Derek Morgan Hotchner (twelve).

Spence, Pen, JJ/Jen Jen, Em/Emmy, Der. He can only pray they live for then he will go to die with no regrets but that he will never see them grow, never grow old with Aaron. Never hold grandchildren but they will be safe and for this, David Rossi will praise God.

 _And lead us not in to temptation, but deliver us from evil_

They shave him, on the last morning. He feels his suit around him once again and there is a priest, to offer him a rosary. It is slightly worn and David Rossi feels the beads against his hands, still warm from the Priests hands. He wears a coat, against the cold and wonders at this last consideration. The photo sits in the inner pocket of his coat. He starts a moment, when the guard with the doubting face comes towards him, holding out his hands to slip on the ring, the one that he'd given Aaron a twin of. And he looks at the man for the first time, this soldier with the doubting eyes and David Rossi thinks that maybe, he has saved someone in this place, though it was not the one he had expected.

A last thumbing of the nose at the authorities perhaps, he thinks.

David Rossi dies with a ring on his finger, a rosary clutched in his hands and a photograph warm against his chest.

 _Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen_


End file.
